Seneca and Shawnee students participated during the annual Engineering Week at Lockheed Martin, which was held from Feb. 17 to Feb. 23.
On Tuesday, Feb. 19, twelve Seneca and Shawnee students represented the Iron Devils Robotics team at Lockheed Martin, during their annual Engineering Week, which was held from Feb. 17 to Feb. 23. Seneca students James Sunbury, Robbie Sunbury, Gus Van Walsen, Jon Klenk and Shannen Preble presented this year.
“Our students provided information about FIRST robotics and local robotics teams that they can become involved in, explained Jennifer Enos, Seneca Special Education teacher and Iron Devils Robotics advisor. “They also promoted a hands on experience by guiding middle school students through the process of driving the robot created by the Iron Devils this year.”
Every year Lockheed Martin invites local teams to participate in their Engineering Week activities, which promote STEM throughout our community. The goals of engineering week are to celebrate how engineers make a difference in the world and it promotes engineering to younger students. Lockheed Martin runs several programs over the course of engineering week for middle schoolers, one of them being robotics demonstrations by teams that they sponsor.
“The highlight of the trip was seeing how many kids have at least a small interest in engineering,” gushed senior Preble. “Hopefully we increased their interest in engineering by showing them the robot and briefly explaining the different roles for robotics.”
Preble also noted another recent trip to Lockheed Martin, during which she and other Seneca students presented Critical Design Review to district administration, Lockheed Martin management, and various invited guests.
“Seeing other team’s approaches to the problem was fascinating,” noted Preble. “And when other teams came up with the same two possible ideas for a mechanism as our team, but chose to go with the other option, it was interesting to see why they thought the other option was better.”
